Top positive review

We travelled Scotland in September 2017, touring in a little campervan and I purchased this book to help. As you will find if you travel the more remote parts of Scotland, phone signal can be hit and miss. You will be fine on the main A roads but venture off and signal quickly vanishes and internet will be hard to rely on. If you tend to plan and research on your phone you may get caught short.

This book filled the gap perfectly and my partner enjoyed reviewing and planning our visits using this book. It's well organised if a little hard to read but only because of the sheer volume of content it has. It also doesn't have much in the way of pictures which surprised me but didnt stop it being useful.

My only bugbear is the author seems to use his book to take a dig at and berate caravan and motorhome owners for example and doesn't waste an opportunity to say what a blight they are. Ironic really as they are probably a good portion of the people who are his customers. These little remarks grated on me even though I had neither a carvan or a motorhome and is why I have docked it a star. I felt like he was saying "Best country in the world, but if you are in a caravan, campervan or motorhome don't come visit!". Just felt a little unprofessional in an otherwise outstanding guide.

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The book is a must-have and each edition has served me extremely well. Having bought the latest version in paperback (light blue cover) I thought I would indulge in the Kindle version to have when travelling. It feels unfinished for a digital format which tend to use lots of dynamic links around the book through the web. For this book these links are either absent or not working so its quicker to scroll page by page until you find the section you want. Maybe it's because I'm used to the book but the transfer to the Kindle format hasn't worked when compared to RoughGuide and Lonely Planet travel books. It feels like just a pdf which makes it feel rather flat where effective digital transfers have a different zing to them. However the content, when you get there, remains impeccable.

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With most of the world's countries shoe-horned into the same bland format by RoughGuide et al it is refreshing to find a guidebook that can stand on its own feet. Peter Irvine is best known in Scotland as the orangiser of the popular hogmanay festival in Edinburgh. He has built this guide up as a sideline over the last 10 years. It is very much his personal opinion on what is good and not so good. As a resident Scot I have consulted it on numerous trips around the country and found his various jugements entertaining and almost always sound. The book is packed with the sort of inside knowledge that will help you find gems known to few other than discerning locals.

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This is the worst guidebook I have ever come across. It is laid out in the most unhelpful way, the maps are a waste of time and I couldn't be more disappointed. We bought it for a travrelling trip around Scotland and ended up buying a roughguide after 3 days. Don't buy it!

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I took a look at this book as its front cover claims that it, "Makes all other guides to Scotland redundant". I have been to Scotland many times but not all of it. I decided to benchmark "Scotland the Best" (StB) against "The RoughGuide to Scotland"(RG)I picked two places Pitlochry and Oban which I know pretty well.

StB has Pitlochry glimpses on 18 separate pages. It has extracted regional items such as Best Hotels/ Restaurants / Hotels welcoming kids / Best Inns / Great Guest Houses / Good Delis / Classic Views / Lochs / Battlegrounds / Whisky / Hills / Shops / Gardens. This is the reason for all of the pages. The first reference to Pitlochry is on page 162 and the last on page 374! So if you want to use the StB guide,then go to the index and find "Pitlochry" and you will get 18 pages to look up!

Now the RG achieves the same result on pages 419-424. It also mentions very key areas of interest such as the Dam and the Festival Theatre which are gems of Pitlochry.

So where does that take me? If you want to find the best hotels, distilleries, fish restaurants etc then the StB book will give you them. I tend to plan my holidays more by geography and then look at references to specific places for details -as I have done above for the Pitlochry example. I am not very good at hopping around many pages -which are dotted through a book like the StB to find what I need to know..so it did drive me a little nuts

On the other hand it is clear that Peter Irvine -the author of the eleventh edition of the StB knows his stuff. And other readers must enjoy the format otherwise it would not have got to the eleventh edition

I like maps -the StB has street maps of Edinburgh and Glasgow and then standard maps. The RG is awash with maps. Both have some photos -in colour.

So, back to that front cover claim for "Scotland the Best" making all other guides redundant? For me - I don't agree. Which one will I take on my next holiday to Scotland? The RoughGuide is the one for me. I suggest you take a look at "Scotland the Best" which could suit you - but it didn't suit what I was looking for in a guide book.

I also looked at Oban, the StB covers Oban in 15 pages from page 133 to the last reference on page 356, versus just 3 pages in the RoughGuide..and there's a map. I think I have said enough